Hello

I have been overweight all my life, and am 4' 9" and have a BMI of 38. I'm considering band surgery but my insurance won't cover it.

I'm interested in finding out how other self-payers have financed their surgery. Did you save up? Put it on a credit card? Get a loan? I have no savings but I do have good credit – but the thought of almost $20k of debt is terrifying!

Please share your experiences. Any helpful suggestions are welcome.

I finally took it out of my 401k. I figured if I keep eating myself to death and spending much more money on prescriptions, office visits and sick time. I took a hardship withdrawl and with the letters from my doctors had no problems taking it out. good luck..

Hello

just wanted to let you know that I am currently in the process as self pay. I filled out an loan application at my doctor's office and was told they use different lenders to help patient's. I was able to get approved for my procedure which will cost 15,000 that includes the procedure and two years of office follow up visits. The lender I was approved for is with Care Credit, I hope this information is helpful.

I financed mine through Care Credit its a plastic surgery credit card company. My payment will be about $308/month. Also if you pay down a big chuck like with ur tax money the note will go down automatically...hope this helps. I applied and got approved for 15K and 13,271 was put on it.

http://www.carecredit.com

I also have a carecredit card but I couldn't use it because my procedure was done outside of the country. Care credit is pretty good because if you Dr. allows you can finance for a period at 0%. I used a cosmeti-credit card. The information was provided to me through my Dr. I decided to have my procedure in Mexico because of the cost. Lots of people are not comfortable with that but it is an option and there are some reputable surgeons. If financing such a large sum is an issue you might want to look at Dr. Kirshenbaum (sp) in Colarado I believe he does the procedure for $9,950.

I used Care Credit as well. I had used them before when I had Lasik eye surgery, and they are great to work with. The online application was simple and I got approval right away. I put $15,000 on the card and my min payments are $349 a month for 7 years with 13% interest, but I'm paying more than the minimum each month and will use my annual tax refund and bonus from work to pay it down more quickly and reduce the interest that I will have to pay.

Good luck!!!